


How Harry Potter Became a Happy Man

by Vaysh



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animagus, Drabble Sequence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 12:19:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaysh/pseuds/Vaysh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Harry Potter became a happy man (in eight drabbles).</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Harry Potter Became a Happy Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enchanted_jae](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Enchanted_jae).



> My heartfelt gratitude to kitty_fic for the last minute online beta.

1.  
Admittedly, you didn't usually find such silvery fur in a cat. Yes, its eyes were a weird shade of grey. And there were dark patches on its front leg, resembling – possibly – a snake and a scull. Luna insisted it was the Dark Mark.

"Wouldn't Malfoy's Animagus be a peacock? Or a ferret?" Harry chuckled.

"Oh no." Luna cooed at the cat. "It's him."

Harry turned around. The next moment sharp claws wiped across his outstretched hand. Blood dripping from his fingers, Harry took the cat home with him. He couldn't well leave Malfoy with the Beast Division over the holidays.

 

2.  
The first snow was falling when Harry opened the door to no. 12 Grimmauld Place. Kreacher made a strangled sound when he saw the cat; the cat – from a crate the Werewolf Capture Unit had provided – replied with a venomous hiss. Muttering foul curses, Kreacher warmed milk, cut ham and slapped a piece of fish on a plate.

After one sniff around the kitchen, the cat pounced on the food. It scoffed down everything within thirty-six seconds – Harry checked the old clock. A final lick, and the cat retreated with wobbly steps under the table where it promptly threw up.

 

3.  
It was a bloody mess. Bits of fish were floating in a glassy puddle of milk; the cat was moaning pitifully. It allowed Harry to pick it up and settled carefully in his lap. Harry could feel sharp bones underneath soft fur and skin. He wondered if this could be Draco Malfoy, after all, and how thin and hungry he'd be when his Animagus form was starved. Harry fed the cat bits of ham, one every minute, and he dipped a finger into a new bowl of warm milk, to have the cat lick it off with a contended purr.

 

4.  
For four days the cat hid in the nooks and crannies of no. 12 Grimmauld Place. It appeared in the kitchen five times a day, punctual to the dot, begging for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tea and supper. At night, always just before Harry went to bed, it demanded a midnight snack. On the rare occasion when Harry was allowed to pet it, the cat seemed to have put on a bit of weight. The shaving soap in the bathroom had miraculously disappeared; some dusty ledgers from the library were in disarray. Other than that, there was no sign of Malfoy.

 

5.  
On the fifth evening, Christmas Eve, the cat joined Harry in his bedroom, after a delicious meal of shelled prawns stewed in dill sauce. Not exactly cat food, Harry thought. But there was the cat curled up on his pillow, watching him from slitted eyes. Harry fell asleep with a soft purr close to his ear.

Pearly morning light was leaking into Harry's room when he awoke. A body, human, warm and male, was pressed against his back; a hand was draped over his hip. When Harry turned, he found Draco Malfoy, white-blond hair and all, asleep in his bed.

 

6.  
The next morning, the cat did not appear for breakfast and not for elevenses, either. Malfoy was gone. Harry sent owl after owl, even his Patronus stag, telling Malfoy he was welcome in Grimmauld Place and that dinner was waiting for him. But Malfoy did not return. Instead, two days later, a memo was delivered to Harry in the Auror Office. The memo was wet as if it had been lying in the snow, and folded three times. The paper had obviously been ripped from a book, and the writing, while elegant, was done with a pencil and barely readable.

 

7.  


> Potter –  
>  thank you; it was good not to go hungry over the holidays. But please keep your obnoxious owl away from me; I have no owl treats to bribe her with. I am looking for work, any work. In regards to that I have a proposition: from what little I gleaned during my stay at Grimmauld Place, you've done an astoundingly shoddy job of managing the Black Estates. Do you really mean to squander away the Black fortune by your careless ignorance? I am offering my assistance in exchange for board and lodging and the usual fees.  
>  Sincerely,  
>  Draco Malfoy

 

8.  
Harry still had to get used to Draco Malfoy, quill in hand, a pair of silver-rimmed glasses on his sharp nose, pouring over leather-bound tomes in the Black library. Malfoy pride, he thought, was an odd, old-fashioned trait, and yet it had brought him this: a cat curled up in his lap before the fire-place, which meant Malfoy would join him later in bed, for the more pleasurable benefits of their arrangement. Harry was slowly falling in love with Malfoy's arse and cock, even with the cat's claws, and he couldn't help thinking that he was – finally – a happy man.


End file.
